Abstract

Learners specially acquire knowledge by means of reading. The importance of this
skill is emphasised with reference to reading strategies and the teaching thereof,
as well as the development of critical and analytical thinking. Although it is not
implicated that such teaching does not exist at all, the lack of a procedural and
systematic approach in this regard is mentioned. The different underlying processes
which take place during the transaction between reader and text need to be taken
into account. One of the main functions of text processing is to make the reader
understand the text as a coherent whole, and therefore the teaching of reading
should acknowledge the interaction between cohesion and coherence. Learners
must become aware of the different devices by means of which an author
communicates specific intentions and should be taught how to utilize these markers
of cohesiveness.
<br>Prediction and inferencing are two of the most important thinking skills used
during reading and effective readers are able to identify text features and
contextualisation cues as part of these cognitive processes. They know, in fact, the
meaning and grammatical functions of words, can identify the logical relationships
between ideas in a text and recognise the rhetorical conventions that govern
academic texts. These readers possess the necessary strategies for the construction
of meaning and use it in a flexible and active way. Successful readers monitor the
reading process and adapt their reading strategies to the type of text and reading
purposes. It is this ability that needs to be taught by means of a procedural approach
to reading.